Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Is the prevention of genocide even possible?

My question: Is it really even possible? The popular slogan is "never again" after the Jewish Holocaust. But we've seen tragedy after tragedy unfold in the decades since then, including the Rwandan crisis during which more than 1 million people were killed in about 100 days and the world at large did very little to stop it. And more recently, there was considerable debate about whether or not we should have intervened in Libya with a possible slaughter about to take place, there is debate about what to do about Syria and the obvious bloodshed there, and war-torn Sudan has been a blight for many years now. Given the complexities of this world from a political, social and economic standpoint, is it really possible to prevent genocide?

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My question: Is it really even possible? The popular slogan is "never again" after the Jewish Holocaust. But we've seen tragedy after tragedy unfold in the decades since then, including the Rwandan crisis during which more than 1 million people were killed in about 100 days and the world at large did very little to stop it. And more recently, there was considerable debate about whether or not we should have intervened in Libya with a possible slaughter about to take place, there is debate about what to do about Syria and the obvious bloodshed there, and war-torn Sudan has been a blight for many years now. Given the complexities of this world from a political, social and economic standpoint, is it really possible to prevent genocide?